Tengzhou Heyi Foods Company Ltd., a big enterprise processing chicken products in Shandong Province, is eligible to export food products to Japan, South Korea and EU countries. On December 3, the Company was awarded the Registration Certificate for Export Food Manufacturer by Zaozhuang Customs House subordinate to Qingdao Customs District.

Differently from the past, the Customs did not conduct approval formality, but only finished the record filing, issuing the Registration Certificate with long validity. 

On November 15, the State Council released a notice to fully decouple business license and business operation permit in the pilot free trade zones nationwide and usher in a list-based administrative mode to regulate government approval items for business operations. This reform will be carried out in four ways: (1) directly canceling approval, (2) approval converging into record-filing management, (3) pre-commitment of compliance, and (4) optimizing approval services. Later, the GACC also announced that, from December 1, the registration of export food manufacturers will be handled in the way of “approval converging into record-filing management”.   

As per the new requirements, the Registration Certificate for Export Food Manufacturer keeps valid for long, instead of 5 years, and the registration process and materials are also simplified, only the application form to be submitted online. Moreover, both issuance and alteration of the Certificate are exempted from paper material audit and on-site expert review, so as to further reduce business access threshold and transaction time. 

According to GACC announcement, among the business licensing items in customs reform, there are 2 items subject to “approval converging into record-filing management”, 1 item subject to “pre-commitment of compliance”, and 12 items subject to “optimizing approval services”.

Since the reform beginning in Shandong Pilot FTZ, Qingdao Customs has refined its measures, timely interpreting relevant policies to enterprises, to ensure the reform implementation and benefits for local enterprises.